The extraction of useful data from the analysis of images has been a very active area of research in recent years. While the earliest forms of image processing focused mainly on adjusting the visual aspects of an image, the ever-increasing processing power of modern computers has allowed for the implementation of more powerful image processing algorithms that provide for the extraction of semantic information from photographic images.
Most photographic images convey a great deal of semantic information that is readily apparent to a human viewer. For example, often a human viewer viewing one or more photographic images can infer the existence of a social relationship existing between two or more persons appearing in the images. While such semantic information can be very useful, the extraction of accurate social relationship data from images by machines has been enigmatic.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.